1968 Plymouth Road Runner - Builder's Corner

The Slatersville, Rhode Island, shop started with the vision of being the one-stop restoration place. They would do ground-up restos, repairs, and services on the vintage breed. The full custom builds in the 21st century often become competitions of how much money you have or what bizarre ideas you can come up with. Nevertheless, one thing that will never go out of style is a clean restoration. Xtreme thrived on this premise, but customers kept demanding major changes to their rides, and Xtreme Restorations happily went along with it.

Though these builds are getting more radical, Xtreme has a focus on keeping the classic look and feel of the cars they build. This is definitely true for customer Henry Noyes' '68 Road Runner, which you may remember was the subject of last month's rollbar how-to story. Noyes has had this Mopar in his garage in Rutland, Massachusetts, for over a decade. The reason it's taken so long to get things to come together on this car is because he simply had too many cooks in the kitchen. He didn't have a clear path for the Road Runner to follow, and too many people were involved in the build. Finally, Noyes took the car to his longtime friend, Todd Lewis. They were coworkers in an auto parts store 20-odd years ago and worked together in the past on his Monza project. Despite the Road Runner's long sitting time, seeing it actually come together at Xtreme Restorations has got him quite excited for it to be done. Noyes is the kind of guy who has one or two cars, and hangs onto them forever. This particular car has had three different engines, yet has never run. This time, it's running a 572ci Hemi with a Keith Black block, so there's not much room for improvement. The object is to have a brutally fast, well-rounded car that can do a little bit of everything, including a run around the autocross and down the strip.